“How do I know you won’t try to trade the Bell for her life?”
“Even if I wanted to do it, it wouldn’t work. He’d just kill all of us and take the Bell anyways.”
Cartwright emitted an annoyed sigh. I sensed his internal strife. Abruptly, he turned around and started walking.
I raised an eyebrow at Beverly. She shrugged in return.
I started to follow him through the corridor. We walked for a minute, passing an intriguing metal door along the way.
Suddenly, he stopped. I stepped to the side to avoid bumping into him. Then I looked over his shoulder. “Really? A dead end? When are you going to stop wasting time?”
He didn’t say a word. Instead, he bent down and felt along the bottom of the bedrock wall. His finger pressed something.
I heard a soft crack. The wall shifted open. Turning my beam toward it, I saw a giant room.
It was filled with many things but one object stood out above all the others. As my light glinted off its smooth, metallic exterior, I felt staggered to the core.
“My God,” Beverly whispered. “Oh my God.”
Despite nearly forty years of inactivity, the giant metal monster appeared sleek and polished. My flashlight traced its silver side, illuminating a single word painted in black one-foot high letters. My hand trembled as I read the word.
Omega.
PART V
THE RACE
Chapter 54
Cartwright shoved his hand into my face. Startled, I glanced to the right. “What’s your problem?”
He pointed a finger at the ground. Following it, I spotted a tripwire running just past the open wall.
“Stay here,” he growled. “I need to disable the explosives.”
“You put explosives next to the Bell?” Beverly made a face. “Doesn’t that seem a little, you know, dumb?”
“Just enough to blow up this entranceway,” he replied. “But the tremors wouldn’t reach the Bell. Anyway, the Omega’s a powerful beast. Nothing’s going to pierce her shell.”
“What is this place?”
“The end of the line. According to his notes, Beach got tired of fighting with the politicians. He knew they’d never let him run his system in peace, so he just stopped work and abandoned everything.”
So, that’s why he never went public.
Cartwright stepped carefully through the wall. After he disappeared off to the side, I shifted my flashlight toward the open space.
“Do you see anything we can use?” Beverly asked.
“Not yet. It looks like the other stations we passed through. Just larger and —”
“And what?”
My eyes bugged out. “And you have to see it to believe it. There’s a marble fountain. Chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Windows, fake ones, with velvet curtains. A giant fish tank. Hell, there’s even a grand piano.”
I stepped to the side and she squeezed into the void. For a moment, we stared silently into the station. Then she whistled. “Wow. You have to hand it to Beach…the guy sure had style.”
I felt dizzy. I touched my forehead again. It felt tacky, the kind of slight stickiness one experienced when stepping on dried, spilt beer. Gently, I swept my hand across my head, checking myself for other wounds.
Finding nothing, I shifted my focus to the rest of the room. We stood just outside the western end of the station. To my right, a circular tube entered the room, carrying with it the familiar groove as well as the metal tracks. Beach’s groove continued north, ending at a large pile of debris and trash. The Sand Demons’ tracks drifted off to the east, ending abruptly near the middle of the room.
The Omega rested on those tracks. If it hadn’t been facing the wrong way, it would’ve looked ready to leave the station. Unfortunately, without a third rail, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
The hairs on my arms stood on end. Although it initially seemed wide open, the station suddenly felt closed off and isolated. And although everything had seemed so exciting moments earlier, it now felt ghostly and still.
Cartwright reappeared in front of us. “We’re all clear.”
I walked into the station and took a deep breath, inhaling the aroma of dust, trash, and electricity. They were familiar smells but somehow they seemed different. I took another sniff. This time, the odors seemed more muted and indistinguishable.
That’s strange…
I didn’t know what was wrong but I found it unsettling. It felt like I’d lost control of my faculties.
“Are you going to set up the explosives again?” Beverly asked. “They might come in handy against Jack and his guys.”
Cartwright pressed a button, closing the wall behind us and gave her a withering look. “Of course.”
“Are there any others in here that we should avoid?”
“As long as you stay around the Omega, you’ll be fine.”
“Where are your other traps?” I asked.
He jabbed a thumb at the large circular tube. “There’s just one more in the vicinity but it’s a big one. It’s set up in there, just outside the station. Hopefully we won’t have to use it.”
“Did you block off this station?”
He nodded. “We sealed the tube off with one of our doors. It’s just a piece of metal covered with a thin layer of bedrock. If we’re lucky, Chase will think he’s hit a dead-end and turn around. If not, well…”
“Disable the bomb.”
He gave me a funny look. “I made a solemn vow to keep the Bell safe. I’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish that.”
I clenched my fists. “Diane’s out there. If Chase brings her through that way…”
“Not my problem.”
“Then, what about the people on the streets above us? Don’t you care about them?”
“They won’t feel it.” He crossed his arms. “The bedrock will cut off any impact long before it reaches the surface.”
I felt my face grow red. I started to step forward but a small, delicate hand cut me off.
Beverly looked at me. “Cool it.”
I gestured at Cartwright. “Why don’t you talk to him? He’s the one who—”
“I’m talking to you. We need to focus on what matters here. And before we do anything, we need to destroy the Bell.”
I exhaled a few times then walked past Cartwright. As I crossed the station, I felt my anger boiling inside of me. I wanted it to consume me. Reluctantly, I shoved it aside instead.
The pile of debris and trash at the end of the groove caught my attention for a second time. It lay against the north wall, directly in front of some large markings. I could see the exact spot where Beach had planned to continue his tubes but ended up halting construction instead.
For some reason, it filled me with hope. Maybe it was the area’s untapped potential. Maybe it was the unexploited resources that we might find within the debris. Either way, it was the first real positive feeling I’d felt since seeing the Omega. I stowed it away deep inside, knowing I might need it later.
I stopped next to the Omega. Three sets of wide doors were spread out in front of me. The two sets in the rear were closed while the one in the front was wide open.
It was a beautiful car, free of rust and dust. It looked like the Sand Demons had taken good care of her over the years.
I saw a couple of long thick power cables nearby. They rose off the ground and disappeared through a tiny crack in the rearmost window. Shifting my gaze, I tried to follow them, but thick blankets on the inside kept me from seeing the car’s interior.